1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to robotics, and particularly to a robotic leader-follower navigation and fleet management control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
A robot generates its trajectory based on Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). The mapping problem is addressed by using the current observations and the last available knowledge about the navigation environment. From the literature, simultaneous localization and mapping is used when a robot is placed at an unknown location in an unknown environment and requested to incrementally build a map of this unknown environment and use it to navigate autonomously. However, a problem remains in the implementation of SLAM to control a fleet of robots.
Researchers addressed fleet control by implementing a potential fields formation control strategy, but they considered a point mass robot. What is needed, however, is to extend the fields formation control strategy to make one of the robots lead the others in an unknown environment, and at the same time have all the agents in the fleet keep their formation shape based on the potential fields. Moreover it would desirable to formulate a new framework extending previous work from point mass holonomic agents to nonholonomic vehicles.
Thus, a robotic leader-follower navigation and fleet management control method solving the aforementioned problems is desired.